How To Survive This Fairytale by S.M. Hallow

HOW TO SURVIVE THIS FAIRYTALE is a brilliant work of fairytale horror with interlocking characters and also a fascinating look at generational trauma, identity, agency, and love. I grabbed it purely on impulse when I saw Hedone's Thread post about how some of their books would be leaving KU, even though I'd never really heard of any of the titles before, and as soon as I started this book, it was all I could think about. I currently have the flu and I was curled up on my bed, white-knuckling my laptop as I read the book on my app, desperate to see what would become of Hansel in his bizarre and compelling story.

The book takes a "choose your own adventure" approach, sometimes showing how different outcomes would pan out before moving on to the "correct" one. The last book I read that did this was Vivian Vande Velde's HEIR APPARENT, which was a video game that gently poked fun at stock fantasy tropes. I loved this approach there too and had always been looking for something similar, but I never found it until reading HOW TO SURVIVE A FAIRYTALE.

I'd recommend this to people who loved 10th Kingdom and Once Upon a Time, who read Angela Carter and Tanith Lee, who love queer love stories and shape-shifting as a metaphor for a trans "coming out." This book was all of that and so much more and I will absolutely be reading anything else this author writes because I loved this book more than words can really say.

5 out of 5 stars